


The Prancing Pony

by dreamiflame



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen, Vampire!Hobbits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-30
Updated: 2002-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:39:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo and his friends aren't the only travelers at the Prancing Pony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prancing Pony

**Author's Note:**

> This is simultaneously so embarrassing and so awesome. Okay. So back in the day, when Fellowship of the Ring was the only movie out and we were all going a little nuts wanting more, some of us started reading the books. No, not just the trilogy, all the books. Unfinished Tales and all.
> 
> There are canonical vampires in Middle Earth. From there, it was a short hop to Vampire!Hobbits. I think I should be apologizing, but honestly, it was so much fun to be part of.
> 
> Thanks to Miss Mary for the plot bunny, Olwen for the beta, and Gina for the encouragement.

She was hungry. It seemed like she was always hungry these days, but it was getting harder to hide what she was if she fed to the fullest. So she traveled, and tried to make due with the tiny lives she could catch in the wild sometimes.

She missed her family, and the Shire, too, though she had left both long ago after she had become what she was. It seemed all so long ago, and the desire to see the familiar lands, and the familiar people had grown in her. So she had decided that maybe, just maybe, enough time had passed that she could return, if only for a short while.

Which was why she was here, in a tavern in Bree, nursing a half-pint of ale and listening to the rain outside. The Prancing Pony Inn was full this evening, for there were few who wanted to go out in this weather, and the food and ale were good. So she waited, in her shadowy corner, looking over the other patrons and trying to decide which she wanted for dinner.

The others in the place were primarily male, and Men as well, which meant if she chose she could have a full meal off of one of them, and they would be little the worse for wear. So much blood in one of them, and she could hear it, pounding in different rhythms in the different men, and smell it, too, from various cuts and scrapes these rough Men had. Most of them were not to her taste, though, too rough or fat for her to want to approach them, but there were a few prospects.

She had just come down to a debate between Barliman himself, or a man in a hood that kept to the shadows like her, when the door opened, and four drenched hobbits made their way inside.

She gasped, not daring to believe it, but there they were, drenched and scared looking, obviously not used to being here among the Tall Folk. She watched carefully, tugging her hood up higher to shield her face, as their leader, a dark-haired hobbit with bright blue eyes spoke to Barliman. Barliman said something that made his face fall, and he turned to face the others, who drew closer to him, to converse. "What do we do now?" she heard one ask, faint under the din of the other patrons, before they decided to get something to drink and eat, while they waited. 'Waited for what?' she wondered, and smiled in private amusement as one of them moved his head wrong, and light glinted off his teeth. Good to know she wasn't the only vampire hobbit around anymore. It would make going home easier.

Unfortunately, it might make dinner harder. Perhaps, she mused, the best plan would be to approach them, so that they wouldn't accidentally get in one another's way. Before she could attempt to, however, the youngest hobbit decided to make a spectacle of himself. He made a fuss to his companions over the fact that ale came in pints, and used getting one as an excuse to move to the bar. He lingered there after getting his pint, chatting up those around him as he looked them over. She laughed internally, enjoying his cheerful slyness. He might look young, and he might actually be young, she thought, but this one will never have trouble getting dinner.

The others still at the table he had left were also looking over the crowd. And she noticed that the leader had caught someone's attention, that of the man she had debated dining on. The shadowy man had been watching the hobbits since their arrival, she realized, and she wondered if he perhaps knew what they were. If so, it could be dangerous for her, as well, and she immediately took him off her mental list of meal possibilities.

As it turned out, she was almost positive later that the man in the shadows hadn't known what the hobbits were, for why else would he have allowed all four to stay with him? Four vampire hobbits could drain a man like him to his death easily. She wiped her mouth clean, to be sure that no blood had fallen from her lips. She had finally decided on a Southerner who had seemed a little too curious in her, and now he lay sleeping, drained low, but not in danger of death. She moved back around the inn, out of the alley she had lured the large man to, and went back inside the common room.

She flattened herself against the wall as the door burst open again, allowing four nightmares in black carrying swords in. The heavily cloaked figures moved with a purpose that frightened her, and she wondered why they had come, only to be struck with the realization: they had come for the others. After the leader had vanished in plain sight, only to reappear not too much later in nearly the same spot, just before the man in the shadows had swept him off, she should have realized that those hobbits, as like her as they were, had been on the run. From these things, she thought, and covered her ears as their shrieks started. Whatever they were searching for, had eluded them. They rode off on giant black horses, and she watched them go, wishing the best of luck to the only others of her kind she'd ever met. The others would need all the luck they could get to stay away from those black riders.

When morning came, she pulled up her hood and headed out, continuing on her journey towards the Shire, and home. She looked back only once, and saw four small shapes led by a larger figure and leading a horse headed in the opposite direction. So, they were still alive then. And whatever they carried, besides the hunger, was still free. She looked ahead, and walked on with a lighter heart.

**Author's Note:**

> The unnamed narrator is supposed to look like Claudia from Interview With the Vampire.


End file.
